Archive for 2012/06/10

Swiss Federal Supreme Court: Google does not have to guarantee 100 percent blurring of the faces of pedestrians, auto license plates and other identifying markers

Posted: 2012/06/10 in Blocking, Education / Awareness, Filtering, Google, Jurisprudence, New Business Models, Privacy / Data Protection, Public Policy, Stats / reports

99 percent would be acceptable. The company, based in Mountain View, Calif., says its technology blurs faces and license plates in 99 percent of cases.

While the Swiss court sided with Google on the adequacy of its digital pixilation methods, the panel upheld several conditions demanded by the national regulator. Those conditions would require Google to lower the height of its Street View cameras so they would not peer over garden walls and hedges, to completely blur out sensitive facilities like women’s shelters, prisons, retirement homes and schools, and to advise communities in advance of scheduled tapings.

The Swiss court also said Google must provide better information about Street View by, for example, allowing people to opt out of the photo archive through traditional mail services as well as online.

“A lot of people in Switzerland don’t have Internet access and they were frustrated by Google’s refusal to provide a clear postal address for their complaints,” said Eliane Schmid, a spokeswoman for the Swiss data privacy regulator.

Google employs several hundred workers at a regional office in Zurich, one of the largest it has outside the United States.

Much more:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/09/technology/09iht-google09.html?_r=1

Iranian Government To Prohibit Use Of Virtual Private Networks, IP Proxies And Even Gmail And Other Foreign Communication Services

Posted: 2012/06/10 in Blocking, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Filtering, Google, Legislation, Network Security, Privacy / Data Protection, Public Policy, Stats / reports

Iran’s cyber police force is poised to launch a new crackdown on software that lets many Iranians circumvent the regime’s Internet censorship, media reported on Sunday.

The operation will target VPNs, or Virtual Private Networks, which use a secure protocol to encrypt users’ data, foiling online blocks put in place by Iran’s authorities, according to the head of the specialised police unit, Kamal Hadianfar.

“It has been agreed that a commission (within the cyber police) be formed to block illegal VPNs,” he was quoted as saying in a report originally published by the Mehr news agency.

“About 20 to 30 per cent of (Iranian internet) users use VPN,” or more than seven million people out of the country’s 36 million web users, he added.

Legal VPNs would only be used by “the likes of airlines, ministries, (state) organisations and banks,” he said – and even they would be monitored by the commission.

Iran has long tried to stop its population accessing millions of foreign websites authorities see as undermining the Islamic regime, including Facebook, Twitter, the online pages of the BBC and CNN, many torrent sites, blogs, and pornographic hubs.

“Some websites are obscene and others are officially hostile towards the Islamic republic’s system. (Thus), in the interest of the people and in order to prevent the collapse of families… there is blocking of the Internet,” Hadianfar said.

Much more:
http://dawn.com/2012/06/10/iran-to-crack-down-on-web-censor-beating-software/

See also:

Chinese Government Understands That Increased Anonymity Leads To Less Accountability
http://vrritti.com/2012/06/07/chinese-government-understands-that-increased-anonymity-leads-to-less-accountability/

Australian Pirate Party Sets Course for Parliament

Posted: 2012/06/10 in Education / Awareness, File Sharing, New Business Models, Public Policy, Stats / reports

The Pirate Party’s swift global expansion since those heady days of 2006 has finally come to Australia’s capital, a tiny city-state unimaginatively titled the Australian Capital Territory (ACT). The city itself is named Canberra, taken from the local people’s language, which means simply, “meeting place.”

Canberra represents a rare opportunity for the Australian wing of the Pirate Party – no other electorate contains such a unique set of factors that, when combined, deliver the party a genuine shot at gaining its first parliamentary representation in Australia.

Victory is by no means certain. The party faces many challenges, such as finding the right candidates and overcoming internal growth pains. Yet Canberra’s use of a proportional voting system combined with a progressive leaning population makes it fertile grounds for the new movement.

More:
http://torrentfreak.com/australian-pirate-party-sets-course-for-parliament-120610/

A new service from UsenetStorm reduces the complexity of Usenet downloading by providing access to binary content through a standard web-browser. Best of all, the entry-level service is completely free of charge

Posted: 2012/06/10 in Education / Awareness, File Sharing, New Business Models, Stats / reports, Tech Evolution

The main reason for creating UsenetStorm was to offer Usenet binary downloads through HTTP, since file lockers are getting more restrictive and torrent users are being targeted by weak Government puppets,” UsenetStorm owner William Thomas told TorrentFreak.

“Even though UsenetStorm launched its first beta 3 years ago, it’s taken a lot of time and investment to be able to offer the service we do today. Usenet has a lot of content to offer but its gone largely unnoticed over the years. By offering Usenet as SaaS (Software as a Service) we’re trying to bring Usenet in to the modern ‘web 2.0′ world.”

Regular Usenet providers require a user to run a software client in order to grab content via NZB files (think .torrent files for Usenet), but with UsenetStorm the whole thing is done through a simple web interface.

Additionally, even when traditional companies offer a free Usenet trial they still require users to register their credit cards, a huge problem for those who don’t have one. UsenetStorm’s basic service is completely free, no strings.

“The only restriction for free users is 500mb per NZB file and download speeds are capped at 5mbit. Usage is unlimited to everyone without registration,” William adds.

What this means is if you want to download a release from Usenet that’s bigger than 500mb, each NZB file you create will need to link to a maximum of 500mb of files. You can, however, make as many as you like.

More:
http://torrentfreak.com/free-anonymous-usenet-downloading-with-just-a-web-browser-120609/

The exploit of Microsoft’s Windows Update system by the sophisticated Flame cyber espionage malware was a “significant” event in the history of Windows hacking

Posted: 2012/06/10 in Cybercrime, Education / Awareness, Network Security, Privacy / Data Protection, Stats / reports

Microsoft appears to agree: It not only issued an immediate fix just days after the malware’s public unveiling with one of its increasingly-rare “out-of-band” updates, but it has turned its certificate-generation process upside down and will revamp how it secures Windows updates.

“It was a very significant,” said Wolfgang Kandek, chief technology officer with Qualys, in an interview today. “It’s the Holy Grail of exploits, and until now it had only been done in research.”

Kandek wasn’t the first to link the term “Holy Grail” with Flame: Earlier in the week, Mikko Hypponen, F-Secure’s chief research officer and the first to announce that Flame was somehow using Windows Update, called the feat “the Holy Grail of malware writers” and “the nightmare scenario” for antivirus researchers.

And yesterday, Alexander Gostev, who leads Kaspersky’s research and analysis team, said the Windows Update deception was “better than any zero-day exploit … it actually looks more like a ‘god mode’ cheat code.”

What had those researchers reaching for superlatives was the Flame makers’ theft of digital “signatures,” or certificates, that labeled code as Microsoft’s, and then the use of those certificates to “sign” malicious files that posed as legitimate Windows updates.

https://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9227860/Microsoft_s_reaction_to_Flame_shows_seriousness_of_Holy_Grail_hack

Lessons Learned from Cracking 2 Million LinkedIn Passwords

Posted: 2012/06/10 in Education / Awareness, Privacy / Data Protection, Stats / reports

https://community.qualys.com/blogs/securitylabs/2012/06/08/lessons-learned-from-cracking-2-million-linkedin-passwords

Online hacktivist group Anonymous conducts offline protests in India

Posted: 2012/06/10 in Education / Awareness, Public Policy, Stats / reports

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/india/online-hacktivist-group-anonymous-conducts-offline-protests-in-india/1136

Get a new Kindle Fire and $5 Amazon Instant Video credit for $169

Posted: 2012/06/10 in Education / Awareness, New Business Models, Stats / reports, Tech Evolution

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-33153_7-57449994-10391733/get-a-new-kindle-fire-and-$5-amazon-instant-video-credit-for-$169/

Apple wants to own every screen in your home, including the TV. If it succeeds, you may never buy a non-Apple device again

Posted: 2012/06/10 in Education / Awareness, New Business Models, Stats / reports, Tech Evolution

http://news.cnet.com/8301-33617_3-57450018-276/apples-plan-to-dominate-all-the-screens-in-your-home/

North Koreans are subverting their government’s censorship by sharing files on USB sticks and MP3 players

Posted: 2012/06/10 in Blocking, Education / Awareness, File Sharing, Filtering, Public Policy, Stats / reports

Connected officials and elites are able to buy MP3 players, DVDs, and USB sticks from connections in China, and the contents are handed around surreptitiously. It’s a modern twist on what was called “samizdat” in the USSR—forbidden books and pamphlets, copied and spread among activists in secret.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/06/report-finds-rampant-filesharing-in-north-korea-despite-the-risks/

The Savannah Fund brings Silicon Valley to East Africa

Posted: 2012/06/10 in Education / Awareness, New Business Models, Stats / reports, Tech Evolution

The last several years have seen a blossoming of tech hubs and innovation centers across the African continent, as we reported earlier. In their wake, the growth of Africa-based venture capital organizations has turned a recognition of innovation into an anticipation of profit.

Tech Crunch’s Michael Butcher sketched a picture of the already-existing “accelerator and incubator” ecosystem there.

The latest to join this group is the Savannah Fund. It is noteworthy for its provenance. The three co-founders are Kenya native and White African blogger Erik Hersman, founder of Ushahidi, iHub and many other Africa-based tech projects; Tanzanian entrepreneur and Microsoft alumnus Mbwana Alliy; and Paul Bragiel co-founder and managing partner of i/o Ventures.

More:
http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/06/the-savannah-fund-lays-a-pipe-from-east-africa-to-silicon-valley/